The novel starts with armed baddies in Jamaica establishing a base of operations. Their intention is to build an empire by growing drugs and selling them, smuggling them. We meet Paul and learn about his relationship to his trans-gender sister, who used to be Harry but is now Harriet. He arrives at the family home to discover in shock that his family has been murdered. He arranges the burial of his family.
The story shifts to introduce Kitty Savage and her daughter Clare. They are immigrants living in Miami, and because of segregation, their lives are cramped and difficult. They struggle for work, often settling on difficult jobs, and then eventually, Kitty calls it quits, leaving her husband in Miami and leaving back to Jamaica. Clare's life is radically changed, left with her father in Miami by mother and sister who go back home.
She struggles to identify in her school, because the curriculum is racist and suggestive, and because as a half-black child, her friends don't know how to treat her. She goes to college, but when she visits home, she learns her mother died, and Jennie is coming back. She departs to London to make a life for herself there.
She meets Bobby in London and they travel Europe. He is a war veteran who fought in Vietnam, and his PTSD puts a strain on their love, and one day, he disappears. Clare decides to go to Jamaica, but her plans change when she contracts an infection of her uterus. She does eventually visit, but she is distraught to see the horror of what Jamaica has become, now riddled with crime empires. She decides to join the resistance movement, and her platoon is killed.
